Of Tea, Carriages, and Head Wounds
by justsixwords
Summary: When Arthur Kirkland offers you something to eat or drink, the rule is to always, always say no. But Alfred was never very good at following rules. A one-shot stuffed with brotherly fluff exploring how little colony!Alfred got introduced to tea.


The first time Alfred had ever had tea, he was barely even a colony.

He was on his very first visit to England, and, well, as with most things involving Alfred, it was not going as planned.

"_Hold still_, you buffoon!" Arthur was struggling to wrestle a bandage onto Alfred's forehead, where a long but shallow cut was sluggishly oozing blood. Meanwhile, the young colony was valiantly attempting to fight Arthur off with a small pillow from the couch he was laying on.

"Geddoff geddoff geddoff!" Alfred managed to land a hit with the pillow on his brother's face. "I'm _fine_, Arthur! I don't need the stupid bandage!"

"I swear, sometimes you're worse than Francis," Arthur muttered while trying to simultaneously wrap Alfred's head in gauze and evade the pillow barrage. "If you don't let me put a bandage on that, it'll just keep bleeding till your brains start coming out, and God knows you don't have many to spare."

Alfred froze and drew his eyebrows together, looking vaguely worried. "Can that really happen?"

"Erm—yes—yes, of course, that's what happened to that sailor, from the ship, remember?"

"Oh yeah! James! He had a funny beard. But didn't the captain say it was some fever or something though?"

"Oh, no, no, no. It was his brains. Leaked right out of his head." Arthur raised his large eyebrows and looked down at Alfred with the most grim expression he could muster. "Now, unless you want that to happen to you…"

Alfred flung the pillow he had been using to beat Arthur away across the room and proceeded to glare at the floor. "Fine."

Arthur smiled, rather smugly if you asked Alfred, and the bandaging commenced. Well, it commenced for about three and a half seconds, until Alfred started wriggling again.

"Lie still, will you!" Arthur growled at the squirming boy, "If you want to avoid things like this, don't run out in front of bloody carriages!"

Alfred jerked his head up, disrupting Arthur's careful application of the bandage. "I wasn't _trying_ to get hurt! I had to push that girl out of the way," he stated indignantly.

Arthur sighed and once more attempted to wrap Alfred's head. "You don't have to be the hero, lad. You can save it for the adults."

Alfred crossed his arms and hunched his shoulders. "Adults suck at being the hero," he mumbled. Arthur just shook his head and knotted the bandage.

"Go to sleep, Alfred. I think you've had enough excitement for one day."

"But I'm not even—!"

"_Alfred_."

* * *

When Alfred woke up, he had a headache worse than any headache anyone had ever had before, ever. He was sure of it.

"_Aaarthuuur_," he groaned from the couch, raising one arm in the air and waving it around haphazardly.

The blond stuck his head out from the kitchen and squinted at Alfred. "Mmm, headache. Thought so."

Alfred heard some crashing sounds coming from the adjoining room and sat up slowly, attempting to peer through the doorway without moving from the couch.

Arthur soon reentered, carrying a mug of what appeared to be boiling mud. "Here you are, lad."

He handed it to Alfred, who cautiously held the chipped mug as far from his body as his arms could stretch.

"Drink up," Arthur said, nodding his head at the mug, "It'll make you feel much better, I promise."

Alfred sniffed suspiciously at the steaming liquid and, eyebrows raised, looked up at Arthur. "What is it?"

"It's tea. Earl Grey. By far the best drink in the entire world."

Alfred glanced back down into the mug. He was well aware of the limitations of his elder brother's cooking skills. His eyes darted back to Arthur's expectant face.

"…Best in the entire world?"

"Absolutely."

"If you say so…" He slowly raised the mug to his lips and took the smallest sip humanly possible.

And then Alfred decided that Arthur was full of crap, and that tea was, in fact, the most repulsive drink in the entire world. The boy was on the verge of spitting out the vile liquid and advising Arthur to never, _ever_ again brew tea, but then he looked up and saw his brother's hopeful face, and, well...

Alfred reluctantly swallowed and gave Arthur a smile that may have ended up looking more like a grimace than a grin. But if it did, Arthur either didn't notice or didn't care, because he gave Alfred a somewhat relieved smile and ruffled his hair.

"See? Nothing like a good cuppa to fix you up."

Alfred had to muffle a snort.

And so Arthur continued making tea for Alfred whenever the little colony caught a cold or scraped his knee, and Alfred continued to drink it, despite his barely-contained disgust for the stuff. After all, what are brothers for?

* * *

AN: I actually like tea, as long as it's not the fruit kind. My mom drinks this apple tea all the time and I just… *shivers.* Not my first choice of drink.

I was planning on writing something about the Boston Tea Party, since, you know, throwing tea into a harbor is always a good time, but then this happened. Completely unrelated aside from the tea, but who doesn't love some brotherly fluff?


End file.
